I have been kind of MIA. Sorry about that. I have been trying to get back in the groove of blogging, but well, here is my day...

5:30 AM: Alarm goes off. I hit snooze and snuggle Sophie.
5:40 AM: Alarm goes off. I hit snooze again and unsnuggle for 10 more minutes of actual rest (which doesn't usually happen, because I am waiting for...
5:53 AM: Eyes snap open and I grab my phone, suspecting (correctly) that my phone didn't feel like snoozing and just flat didn't go off. Grr. Go get Beau (who is sleeping on the couch, because Sophie's room has caught all the boxes and moving madness and stuff, so it's impossible to get to her crib, thus she is sleeping in our room with me) and tell him to go in the bedroom and get in the bed with the baby so the cats don't wake her up.
5:55 AM - 6:40 AM: Shower and get ready for work, leave.
6:42 AM Begin grueling commute from Ft. Worth to Dallas.
7:25ish: Arrive at the first of several exits I can take to get to work, depending on where I stop for breakfast. Think, "Ooohhh, I may have time to blog this morning!" Drive around looking for various forms of breakfast sandwich.
7:50ish: Arrive at work, remember my previous thought about blogging, and mutter profanity.
8 AM: Start work.
8:01 to 10:59 AM: Hope for it to get super slow so I can blog. Sometimes, I even open up Blogger, just to have the visual reminder.
11 AM: Lunch! As soon as I get back with something and eat, I am going to be a blogging fool!
11:25 AM: Get back with food, dick around online while I eat.
12 PM: Welp. That went fast.
12:01 - 4:30 PM: Hope for it to get super slow so I can blog. Sometimes, it actually does, but I end up dicking around on the internet again and accomplish nothing.
4:35 PM: Hit the road for the looooong commute home.
6 PM: Arrive home. Seriously. It took that long.
6:01 PM: Snuggle Sophie. Watch as she invariably does something AMAZING that she couldn't do yesterday. Die a little inside. Change clothes and settle down to hold her for a bit until she starts squirming and fussing to get back on the floor and play.
6:45ish: Eat dinner.
7: Prime time TV. This will be the death of my blog, I swear to all that is good and holy. On any given night, we watch So You Think You Can Dance or America's Got Talent! or some random movie.
8ish: Time to feed Sophie and get her to bed. That usually takes a bit these days. She fights sleep like a champ.
10 PM: What? How is it 10 o'clock! Maybe I could write a little something before....zzzzzz.

So, there's that. Carving out a moment to update on the state of the TP is challenging, but here's a story about skanky teenage girls and why I am terrified of them!

Last weekend, we took the baby to the pool. When we first got there, we were the only ones there, but after a few minutes, a car pulled up blasting loud music. When I looked over, I saw 5 kids get out. There were 3 teenage girls, and two little kids, who I figured out were the driver's younger brother and sister. One of the little kids got in the baby pool, and one of them played in the shallow end of the big pool. These three teenage girls couldn't be bothered with them. They got in the pool, and just stood in a circle in the middle and talked. As I played with my sweet, innocent baby girl, I overheard these girls talk, in quite colorful language, about all their escapades. The one driving, who was obviously the ringleader, went on and on about all the people she had made out with. She seriously named no less than 15 people. She was very proud of her high number. I took Sophie over to the baby pool when I thought the conversation was taking a sharp turn toward more sexual talk.

Not long after this, they decided to leave and go to the store. The girl who drove the car over gathered her siblings and told them they had to come with her, that they were going to the store. Then, she told them that they "can't tell Mommy." There is no way that girl had her license. If I had to guess (without the car) I would have said she was 14ish. I guess it is possible that she is 15 and has a learner's permit, which would explain why her parents allowed her to drive to the pool, but not to leave the park, but they were young. I assume the store they were going to is Albertson's, which isn't too far down the street. However, the turn out of the TP is a left and there is construction all up and down the road, limiting visibility and causing people to drive like idiots. If I had known where those girls lived, I would have been all up at their front door telling their parents they needed to go hunt them down. But alas.

In my pre-parent life, those girls would have been annoying to me, but they wouldn't flat out scare me. Now, I am terrified of them. I am terrified that Sophie will have friends like them one day, or that (perish the thought) she will be just like them one day. I know there is nothing much I can do about it. All I can do is raise her as best I can, encourage open communication between us, all the while walking the fine line between that and being the BFF parent. And not let her drive a car alone before she has a license. I also know that no matter how good a parent I am, she will be a teenager someday. And she will likely have a hellion stage. And it will be torture.

OK, well, I am going to have to be on my way. I need to start drawing up plans for an elaborate bubble to put my daughter in. Kthxbye.